Influential fantasy and mystery writer Joel Rosenberg is currently embroiled in a labyrinthine legal battle versus the City of Minneapolis stemming from an alleged felony weapons possession charge. His supporters and fans have established a defense fund and are seeking donations.

What are his actual charges? Filming the police without their opinion, and carrying a gun on grounds he's not supposed to carry? But he has permit, and it doesn't exactly sound like he's ignorantly walking about with it. Seeing as he probably his license for concealed handguns, I'm not seeing much felonious action here. A month after the incident, as well? Seems like the local police are in a bit of a lull, and needed a pick me up.

stonethered:There's something fishy going on here. Those Cops sound like they're after him.

Honestly?

Not every false pull is a conspiracy,especially seen as if this ruling is correct he'll cite precedent and walk. This would be a moronic thing to pull him on on purpose, it just sounds like either the cops don't know that law or he's wrong.

Well at least he can use the 'I know all about all the gun laws in the book, in fact, I WROTE the book!' defense thanks to that 'Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota' piece. And he's got the bloody guy who worked on the law he 'broke' helping him out, I think this'll be a non-case eventually.

I need a bit more information on the specifics before I start taking sides on this one.

His wife was falsely arrested and put under a court order to stay away from her own house. Joel and a good lawyer ripped the department a new one and they don't like being shown up.

At all.

Ever.

The department spokesperson, Palmer, is pushing paper ever since he and a partner shot dead a local 90 pound woman in her home. She was backed into a corner armed with a knife. And they shot her.

And, again, they don't like being shown up.

At all.

Ever.

There are plenty of good folks in Minneapolis wearing the uniform and carrying the badge. But much like oxygen in the mountains, it starts thinning out the higher up you climb.

Now, Joel might be in a heap of trouble if he didn't know that there was still an "operational" court room on the third or fourth floor of city hall, but if not, the city of Minneapolis is again showing its ability to kick itself in the behind. But I didn't actually say that because they don't like being shown up.

Specifically he violated an illegal court order(It is not and never has been legal for the courts to modify state law. They can declare something unconstitutional, but they cannot write their own law.) and supposedly for violating the law on concealed carry, except for the fact that he clearly falls under a subsection which explicitly defined what he did as legal. Combined with the fact that they didn't arrest him for over a month and the extremely excessive bail shows this to be a sham prosecution which will end up doing nothing but costing the taxpayers of Minnesota a shitload of money.

stonethered:There's something fishy going on here. Those Cops sound like they're after him.

I wouldn't think after him so much as confused about how much power the city has to restrict things.

For years the Port Authority in Portland declared it was illegal to carry a firearm into any port. Problem is the state actually has pretty clear definitions on where and when it is legal and illegal to carry a firearm, and the Port Authority over stepped it's authority in this matter. Yet the law backed them for years.

The same thing happened in Sea Tac, they never officially declared it illegal, but many believe you cannot carry a firearm onto the Seattle airport. While you cannot carry a firearm into an unsecured area, if you can carry a firearm into unsecured areas of airports is entirely up to the state you are living in and how the laws are set up in those states. Traditional open carry states (states that have protections in their constitutions) that set up bans in this nature soon find out that the ban is unconstitutional. It's easier not to carry a firearm into the airport then to try and fight an illegal law so nobody does, but that doesn't make the law anymore valid.

The same things happening now in ports, and other similar areas was already covered once before with the passing of the Firearms Owners Protection Act in 1986. It was discovered that the BATF, was far and away abusing powers given to them and well over 75% of the prosecutions for firearms they had made where unconstitutional. This was mostly at a time when automatic firearms where banned, and the some 175,000 preban automatic weapons where closely watched by the BATF, who used their wide ranging powers to harass and illegally confiscate those weapons in an attempt to completely remove them from the public. Even through not a single one of the 175,000 legally obtained and licensed firearms was ever used to commit an illegal act.

I bring up that act specifically because bands of firearms in unsecured airport areas (especially parking lots) goes completely against the Safe Passage section of that act. Yet they are willing to ignore what is already established federal law with what would essentially be a restrictions imposed by an agency of the goverment (the TSA controls security in airports).

I have had difficult dealings with the police on three occasions due to firearms. Once being actually arrested, and nearly having my vehicle impounded because a sheriffs deputy couldn't let me show him my carry permit. Once for not telling the officer who stopped me that I had a firearm; which is not required, and frankly not a great idea, how would you react if someone you just stopped for a traffic infraction suddenly told you they had a firearm, how are all the cop shootings at traffic stops not supposed to spring to mind? The last time was for having a pistol in the parking lot of a bank, again not illegal, carrying the firearm into the bank would have been, but the parking lot is a different story. Besides the officer only saw the firearm because I removed it from it's holster to secure in the truck once I got to the bank, I could have walked right into the bank and nobody would have noticed a thing.

All that said I think it likely that they have a local ban on firearms in the city hall that is an illegal law under the Minnesota constitution, or state laws, but never having lived in that state I couldn't be sure. I doubt a person that wrote a book on the firearm laws of the state would make such a mistake through.

rembrandtqeinstein:I hope he sues the hell out of the city after the charges get dismissed. Cops really do think they get to harass and harm anyone who embarrasses them.

And for you kiddies reading this please take 30 minutes of time and watch this video, it could save you YEARS of hardship later in life.

Cba watching it, sorry :(

But if it's about a guy saying how much being an honest, law abiding citizen and cooperating fully and making reports to the Police royally fucked up his life then I can attest to it.

I've had more trouble in my life from making police reports against criminal acts perpetrated on my and my families lives and from doing my law abiding duty by testifying against said scumbags than I EVER would have done had I just got them in an alley and slotted the bastards.

DON'T talk to the Police.. it'll all just get worse.

Take revenge and argue it out in court. The Police and juries are stupid and lawyers are lying crooks.

Spoken like someone never arrested. Even the smallest arrest is such a giant pain in the ass, and so scary, it's not worth any amount of money. Even if you get away scott free, it can ruin your life forever. Just ask any man that's been falsely accused of child molestation. Any woman, either.

I suspect the cops are embarrassed for screwing up in the first place, and were trying to strong-arm him into shutting up.

Spoken like someone never arrested. Even the smallest arrest is such a giant pain in the ass, and so scary, it's not worth any amount of money. Even if you get away scott free, it can ruin your life forever. Just ask any man that's been falsely accused of child molestation. Any woman, either.

I suspect the cops are embarrassed for screwing up in the first place, and were trying to strong-arm him into shutting up.

Interesting. I wouldn't expect that someone so well versed in firearms and the laws surrounding them would be caught out like that. But then I don't know the whole story, so I'll reserve judgement, there could be any number of reasons for his arrest, including something as simple as forgetting to have an appropriate piece of documentation or something.

what does this have to do with video games? oh right nothing. im sorry but this is jsut the editor trying to force his own political views down the throats of the fans of this site. im opposed to the nra, and if i get so much as a warning for disagreeing with this article i know the escapist cares for the first amendment as much as the nra cares about reducing gun violance, none.

Russ Pitts:But it's hard to believe that with so much at stake his mind will be occupied with little else but the fight for his freedom.

You would be suprised how many works were written by authors when they were going through a challenging period of their life. Infact, he might decide to write precisely to take his mind off of his current situation.

But anyway, it seems like the author knows the laws inside-out, yet the police still managed to somehow screw things up. I hope justice wins in the end.

psrdirector:what does this have to do with video games? oh right nothing. im sorry but this is jsut the editor trying to force his own political views down the throats of the fans of this site. im opposed to the nra, and if i get so much as a warning for disagreeing with this article i know the escapist cares for the first amendment as much as the nra cares about reducing gun violance, none.

Seriously? When's the last time you looked over this site's features? This site hasn't been solely about video games in quite a while, even if that is still the primary focus.

As for disagreeing... well, the way I see it, this isn't about the NRA or even the 2nd amendment. It's about the abuse of authority (and arguably about a guy that seems to be looking for trouble). Is it only on The Escapist because the guy is an at least reasonably well known author? Yep. If that sort of thing doesn't pique your interest, then so be it. No reason to tweak the (article) author's nose over it.

I guess I just don't see the point of being combative just so you can cry "oppression" when you get slapped down.

psrdirector:what does this have to do with video games? oh right nothing. im sorry but this is jsut the editor trying to force his own political views down the throats of the fans of this site. im opposed to the nra, and if i get so much as a warning for disagreeing with this article i know the escapist cares for the first amendment as much as the nra cares about reducing gun violance, none.

The Escapist covers all sorts of "geek-related" news, not just news pertaining to video-games. The editor isn't trying to "force his own political views" down anyone's throat. You want to cry first-amendment? Then the editor is also entitled to share his own opinions via the first amendment, or more specifically in this case, the site's guideline's for contributors which must allow them to include their political views in the material they submit to the site (because many of them do include said views, albeit subtly). On top of that, if contributors who hold to more left-wing views such as Yahzee and contributors who hold to more central views such as Bob Chipman (that's simply based on my observations of their submissions mind you) are allowed to contribute to the site, why not in all fairness shouldn't those with right-wing views be allowed to contribute? You're being hypocritical by slamming the editor of this article for his views yet attempting to hide behind the first amendment to avoid criticism yourself.